Eventually, I slid my arms around his neck and, with enormous discomfort, rested my head against his shoulder, absorbing the sensation of leaning into a man. This was my Dancer. The boy who’d found me as a child, racing down the street, exploding out of freeze-frame with blood-spattered head to toe and guts in my hair, and liked me instantly. And while I’d talked a million miles a minute, spitting “dudes” and “fecks,” he’d stared at me as if I was some exotic creature from another planet, and the most stunning, brilliant thing he’d ever seen.
I melded our bodies together, my chest to his rib cage, my pelvis to his thighs, focusing only on his strength, refusing to think about that great, deceitful inner muscle of his.
It felt good. Safe harbor. Port in a storm. Something in me relaxed, a part of me that maybe never even once relaxed in my whole life.
So, this was why people hugged. Why intimacy was desired.
It was like stopping at a gas station and fueling yourself up.
It was as if time stood still when you hugged, and something was made from someone else’s arms around you, which hugging yourself could never replicate. I wasn’t alone in life anymore. Someone was by my side, standing ground with me, ready to move forward and face things together. It was the most bizarre, uplifting sensation I’d ever known.
Then we were kissing deep and hot and hungry, that kiss he’d promised me, the sexy nineteen-year-old one, and my hands were in his hair and I started to feel dreamy and sex-obsessed and like someone that had grown up normal and gone to school like other kids, maybe even attended a high school dance, and I was slow dancing with a boy for the first time. But he was a man.
And I was definitely a woman. I could feel the hardness of him pressed against me and I wanted to touch him and taste him and feel him inside me. And I wanted to tear myself from his arms and race out the door without ever looking back. Me, who wasn’t afraid of anything, stared down any foe, fought any war, killed without hesitation, now quailed, waging a battle I’d avoided all my life: intimacy.
“Mega,” he groaned, “you’re killing me, kissing me like this. You want to get out of here?”
I drew back and looked at him. My lips were swollen and sensitive and wanted to keep kissing. I felt warm and bubbly inside, languorous but humming with energy that wanted to go somewhere. This was such a big deal to me. I’d always promised myself it would be epic. I’d always thought it would be with a superhero, like myself. I was pretty sure Mac thought I’d already done it. Or worried that I had anyway. But it wasn’t as if I’d ever gotten to stay in one place long, and although there had been humans Silverside, I had trust issues and one goal on my mind: get back home.
Ryodan was the first man I’d ever kissed.
I was good at everything I did. I’d watched a lot of porn movies and thought a great deal about sex. I had a brilliant imagination. And hunger—I had a megaton of that. I knew when I finally did have sex, I was going to be epic.
But this was the one thing I’d kept. The single big decision about the way I wanted to live my life that was entirely mine.
Virginity was a door you only got to bang once.
I didn’t know how to take off my armor. I’d worn it too long. I didn’t know how to live like other people. I was a Tin Man with no oil.
“You said you had some things to tell me and something you wanted to show me?” I evaded.
He took my retreat with his customary resilience. His grin was instant, the disappointment in his eyes hastily concealed. “Mac hears the song inverted, Mega. It’s totally different the way she hears it! And I have a video you’ve got to see. You’re never going to bloody believe it.”
Then he was sitting at his desk, the moment had passed, but I knew it would come again.
Then he was playing a song for me and it was the most incredible music I’ve ever heard.
I don’t know how long we sat there, listening to music I couldn’t wrap my Mega brain around, but I had a sudden thought that buoyed me: when we figured out the Song of Making, considering it was supposed to heal things, maybe it would heal Dancer’s heart. If it could heal holes in the fabric of the world, why not a simple human muscle? Stranger things had happened. I was surprised at how uncharacteristically pessimistic I’d been about his condition. But it’d been so unexpected and I’d recently suffered a traumatic loss. Combined, they’d sublimated my usual optimism and determination to rewire the world the way I wanted it to be.
I was feeling so much better about everything when he finally stopped the music, got serious, and pulled up a video, it took me a moment to absorb what I was seeing.
A crowd of a hundred or so people stood outside Chester’s, shadowy yet visible, splashed yellow by the amber glow of gas lamps and red from the eerie glow of the crimson moon above. They were wild, excited, carrying weapons, wired on some drug or another. I know the look in the eyes of a stoner. There were two dead armed guards lying in the street.
Ten of them went at once—just raced straight into the black hole that Christian and I had spent all day working on. They were instantly spaghettified and slurped greedily in. The others cheered and punched their fists in the air as if they’d just done something brave and thrilling, not something so bloody stupid I couldn’t believe anyone would voluntarily do it. The world tries hard enough to kill you and succeeds eventually. Why cooperate or rush it?
My gaze flew to Dancer’s. “How did you get this?” I demanded.
He smirked. “Hacked Ryodan’s computers. Tapped into his surveillance cams. Still trying to get into his mainframe.”
My heart sank. Ryodan was one dude Dancer didn’t want to be messing with. You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind. Suddenly I had an old Jim Croce song my mom used to play stuck in my head. “Turn it off,” I said stiffly. “And stay out of his stuff.”
He looked at me like he couldn’t believe what I was saying. He hit the Pause button and said, “Mega, we always dick with Ryodan. That’s what we do. It’s like, a calling.” He mocked, “ ‘Hey, Brain, what are we gonna do tonight? Gee, Pinky, take over the world and dick with Ryodan.’ Thought you’d be impressed. You have no idea how many bloody firewalls I had to hack to get this. Don’t know who’s running his system but he’s got security I’ve never seen before. Besides,” he dangled invitingly, “you haven’t seen the interesting part yet. Really want me to turn it off now?”
“What kind of interesting stuff?” I said, eyes narrowing.
“The truth about Ryodan,” he said softly, watching me closely.
I punched the PAUSE button, eyes glued to the screen. That man’s secrets: irresistible. As the video continued, another small group broke off, raced in, and again the others cheered. Morons. Sheep. Baaa.
They repeated the study of stupendous stupidity until there were only ten sheep left standing in the street. Bleating excitedly as if they were winning some kind of war, not waggling fluffy asses and leaping straight down the wolf’s throat.
Then Ryodan materialized in the middle of the crowd, scaring the bejeezus out of everyone, and his eyes were…weird, like, “Did his eyes just turn red? Go back!”
Dancer rewound and I watched it again. Sure enough—and it hadn’t been a trick of the moon—Ryodan’s eyes were pools of blood, backlit by a thousand icy lanterns. His snarl was abnormally large for his face, all mouth and fangs with barely enough skull to frame it.
Horns sprouted on that skull, confirming my teenage suspicions. I leapt to my feet, hands fisting.
I knew it—Ryodan was the devil!
There was no volume but I could see him snarling at the people in the street, and I didn’t need to hear it to know he was saying the same thing I’d be saying: You bloody idiots, why are you killing yourselves? And if you’re so hell-bent on dying, go do it somewhere else. Don’t fuck with my world.
Then all ten of them attacked Ryodan at once. He flung them off like he was batting Ping-Pong balls away. They attacked again and he flung them
all off again, and when they realized they weren’t going to be able to take him down, they veered like a flock of dimwitted, synchronized birds straight for the black hole.
That was when it happened.
Suddenly, Ryodan morphed.
He just bloody transformed in the blink of an eye into one of those great black beasts that fought beside me at the abbey and had, later, eaten crimson runes off Cruce.
Bloody hell, but I’d been off my game! Not once had I pinned the beasts’ inexplicable existence up on my bulletin board and examined it! The beasts that Mac said she’d found Silverside were the Nine! Ryodan was a bloody shapeshifter!
He moved in a whirlwind of black-skinned muscle, talons, and fangs, ripping, slashing, tearing, gouging.
When he was done, he crouched panting, paws and muzzle slick with blood, surrounded by corpses. Then he dropped back on his haunches, ripped open a thigh, tore off a piece of flesh and began chewing, head swiveling this way and that, to ascertain that no other predators were approaching.
I looked at Dancer. He was watching me intently.
I got it then. He’d just done to me what I’d done to him when I came in and spooked him: told me what he wanted to say without words.
Can’t you see he’s an animal, Mega? Choose me.
Dancer knew I was torn between him and Ryodan, what they brought out in me, and I pretty much loved him for that, seeing me so clearly. That’s something when your friends know who exactly you are, good, bad, right, wrong, and just keep caring about you.
I stared back at the screen, wishing I had a problem with what I’d seen.
When pretty much the only thing I was thinking was: So, Ryodan’s immortal, pens a wicked daily, has super senses, and can shape-shift. Fucker.
What else could he do?
Years ago, when I’d told him I wanted to be like him, he told me to ask him when I was older.
I was older now.
MAC
When Barrons texted me to tell me he’d taken care of my problem with Lor, I was pacing the bookstore so briskly I was practically burning up the carpet, dissatisfied with the way I’d handled things.
I’d gone to Barrons for help. He’d taken care of it. It bothered me. I didn’t want to live that way, always taking cover behind my man from other men.
I’d battled my way through assault after trauma after indignity and survived them all. I was the queen of the Fae. But even if I weren’t, I was a woman that needed to know she could stand on her own two feet, toe her line, and demand it be obeyed. Once I transferred the True Magic to Cruce, what would I become—weak again?
Never. I liked who I’d become. I wanted to grow and evolve not backslide.
If the Nine knew I needed Barrons to protect me, they would never respect me. And I planned to be hanging around them for a long time. I didn’t want to be the woman with a strong man. I wanted to be the strong woman.
When I called, Barrons answered on the first ring.
“How did you take care of it?” I demanded without preamble.
“I got rid of the remains. I was in the vicinity of the cemetery and knew I could beat him there.”
“You got rid of them?” I said, dismayed on two counts: One, it only postponed the inevitable. I wasn’t going to hide this truth from Lor forever. And two, I had a very human reaction to wanting remains where they belonged—in a grave. I was still disturbed by the vision of my sister’s empty casket. How odd was that—worrying about where the bones of our loved ones were? But I did.
“I merely moved them elsewhere. You can rebury them at some point,” he growled. “Although I fail to comprehend the desire to make pretty little plots of community and togetherness for decomposing flesh.”
“I have to talk to him,” I said flatly.
“I forbid it.”
Every cell in my being bristled. I practically shouted, “You what?”
“For. Bid. It.”
“You did not just say that to me.”
“Mac, I know what he’s capable of. I know—”
“So do I. He told me.”
“Not the same thing,” he said coolly. “Seeing is believing. It took half a bloody century to calm that fuck down. You will not go anywhere near him. I said I’d take care of it and I did. I will continue to do so. Leave it.”
I said nothing.
“Mac, don’t you fucking hang up on me,” he said staccato fast and heated.
“I didn’t and wouldn’t,” I growled. “Well,” I amended, “at least, I’d say goodbye first.” Probably very quickly and nearly inaudible, but hey. “Hang on a sec.” I sank inward, accessing my files, looking for something similar to the protective barrier Cruce had used the night we sealed away the first Sinsar Dubh. I snorted as my mental tabs surfaced. There were several thousand handy little tabs, all names I’d never seen before, hoo-fucking-rah. I sighed. I’d find what I was looking for eventually. At least there weren’t nine million. I returned my attention to Barrons. “I’ll use a spell to encase myself in a barrier like Cruce did. You couldn’t penetrate it that night in the cavern beneath the abbey. He won’t be able to touch me and he’ll have to hear me out.”
Silence stretched and when he finally spoke I knew how disturbed I was making him because his words came out thick and slightly mispronounced. I knew what that meant; his fangs were out. “You’re assuming he’s capable of reason. If he’s the Bonecrusher, he’s not.”
“I have to try.”
“I don’t like this.”
“And I don’t like needing you to take care of me. I’m not being rash. I’m just being who I need to be. I made this mess. I’ll fix it. I’m not sorry I texted you, and I appreciate you buying me time. But I want to be the one to tell him before he finds out himself.” That was what I should have done anyway, but Lor was intimidating when his eyes did that Bonecrusher thing.
“Your bloody force field won’t work.”
“Cruce’s did.”
“Cruce had the Sinsar Dubh by then. Double the power.”
“It’ll work. I’ll layer them or something. And don’t you dare show up as backup. I’ll be fine.”
“You fucking better be.” Barrons hung up.
It took me nearly an hour to sort through files and find a protective barrier that met my criteria of full body and possible to sift while wearing it. Many of the files were nothing more than legends of Fae battles in which such barriers had been employed. I wasn’t surprised to discover wars broke out among the Seelie pretty much constantly, but as the queen alone had held the spear and sword for most of their existence, they’d raged only until someone drank from the cauldron then sputtered out. Until the next one began.
But finally I’d found suitable armor, donned it, held a mental image of Lor in my mind and sifted to him. The queen possessed a far more finely tuned GPS than Christian. I went straight to him. God, this was handy! I wondered if there was a way to transfer the True Magic to Cruce while keeping certain powers for myself.
I appeared in the graveyard behind the abbey. The night was velvet-black with a three-quarter, crimson-rimmed moon casting a bloody pall over the cemetery.
A study in crimson and shadows, Lor was sitting on Jo’s grave, long legs outstretched, leaning back against the headstone, powerful arms bunching, folded behind his head, staring up at the sky, eyes unfocused, as if he’d not even registered my appearance.
I knew he had. The fine muscles in his face had tightened minutely.
I said nothing. The many things I’d rehearsed in the bookstore abruptly vacated my head.
“So, I’m sitting here,” he said finally, real soft, “thinking to myself that somebody dug up Jo’s body recently, ’cause the ground’s so loose and the coffin’s gone. Not even leaving me the lining to sniff. And I’m thinking I only told one person I was coming here to dig her up, and that person’s standing in front of me, wearing a shield she thinks I can’t get through.”
I stared at him in silence.
A l
ong time passed.
“Ain’t a fool, woman,” he said finally.
“I never thought you were.”
“So, I’m thinking, considering I told that person exactly what I meant to do to the fuck that killed Jo, she came here because she wants to die. Do you want to die, honey? Is that why you brought your sweet little ass here to me? Because deep down you crave death, hunger for oblivion from your many motherfucking sins?” His gaze whipped to mine and I gasped. There was nothing left of the Lor I knew in those eyes. The laughing playful Viking was gone. Something ancient, dark, and sadistic was all that remained.
“Right. Talk to me about craving oblivion for my many motherfucking sins. How many people have you killed, Lor? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Who cries justice on you?”
He surged to his feet in one fluid motion, vanished, then was there, right on the other side of my barrier, as close to nose-to-nose with me as he could get. “Nobody fucking cries justice on me. We are the law. Always have been. Always will be, babe.”
“I don’t see it that way. I see a man who’s going to die if he kills me. Is that what you want, honey? To die?” I mocked. “Is that why you brought your sweet ass over to me? Because that’s what you’re headed for if you think you can exonerate yourself for the deaths of so many innocents yet fail to extend mercy to me for killing someone while I was possessed by the Sinsar Dubh. At least I have the excuse of being possessed. You don’t have an excuse. You chose to do those things. Who punishes you, Lor? God? Oh, wait, you’ll never die. I see—that’s why you think you’re the law—because you never have to answer for anything you do. But you’re not. None of us are. We fuck up. Over and over. And we get back up and try to do better. That’s all any of us do.”
Tears stung my eyes, my heart burned in my chest, because seeing the cold marble of Jo’s grave, and the inscription of her name beyond his shoulder, made it all too real. Pain and grief morphed easily to fury. “You big dumb son of a bitch,” I growled, “I loved Jo. You didn’t. She mattered to me. She was only a distant possibility of mattering to you. I killed her. You didn’t. Who do you think is suffering the most here? ’Cause it. Ain’t. You. Babe,” I said with such vehemence that spittle sprayed on the force field between us.